Digging through the photos, I found a few more of San Sebastian. First, candy stores were everywhere (the locals had to do something when they weren't drinking or smoking or snorting pinxtos) as evidenced by this wall of brittles:
And as mentioned earlier, the streets were packed with colorful characters excited about the regatta....
From San Sebastian we drove to the Rioja Alavesa valley nestled at the foot of the Sierra de Cantabria Mountains, and home to KayDee's favorite wines in the world:
We met up with Gentzane, our guide....
...and got busy with the business of touring and drinking. Our first stop was Tierra Agricola Labastida, whose organic, old-vine, handmade wines I could drink for days....I'm pretty sure KayDee will elaborate on our tasting experience there. The owner Carlos picked us fresh tomatoes from his garden and gave us a tour of the grounds....
...where we learned that most castle-type houses and wineries in Rioja are built atop caves dating anywhere from 2AD to the 10th century, and Tierra was no exception; my jaw hit the floor when Carlos casually gestured to a wall covered with 10th century knives and farming tools that his workers had uncovered while planting the fields...no big deal...hahaha...our guide Gentzane later confided that many of her wine-making friends have uncovered ruins, Roman-era caves, and relics, but keep the findings secret, lest the government infest the vineyards with hungry archeologists.
Our next stop was the Ostatu family winery dating back to the 18th century....
The wines didn't blow me away and the operation feels industrial compared to Tierra's, but it was fun to see how oak barrels are cleaned by a machine that sprays hot water and sulfur inside:
Fabulista was our last winery stop. (I laughed at the self-inflated name, only to learn it actually means "writer of fables" in the Rioja native tongue). Here, again, I didn't feel that the wines held up to Tierra's, but the labyrinthine caves were something out of Indiana Jones or Dracula, minus the table cloths....
One of our last stops with the guide was one of my favorites: a 2BC sarcophagus, likely Roman:
...then it was on to the old town of Laguardia; founded in 1164, it is the capital of the Rioja Alavesa region with heart-stopping vistas over vinyeards, impossibly narrow streets rife with medieval symbols of fertility (see the vines coming out of the mouth below), and plenty of raisined old ladies....
xoxo
--s
--s
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